In order to transport and space-deploy large physical structures, such as antennas, solar reflectors and the like, using cost effective (small) launch vehicles, it is necessary that the underlying support architecture for the deployed structure be lightweight and compactly stowable in as small a payload volume as possible. Many of the space deployment architectures that have been proposed to date employ a relatively long (on the order of three hundred meters or more) rectilinear boom, that provides for the mounting of a variety of devices along its length. Moreover, many applications which use a boom require the boom to be extremely lightweight and have a high degree of stiffness or rigidity. This is particularly true in the case of large antennas, which need to be precisely deployed and must maintain geometry precision on orbit. For such applications it is also necessary that the deployment of the boom be rate and geometry controlled.
Unfortunately, the relatively large, high stiffness booms that have been proposed and deployed to date typically use canister mechanisms for their deployment that are relatively heavy and do not allow side mounting of payloads along the entire length of the structure. Telescoping booms are an alternative, yet like canister deployed structures, they have no side mounting capability. Inflatable structures, on the other hand, provide for highly compact stowage; however, once deployed they are subject to micro-meteoroid damage; they also lack geometric precision due to the fact that they have a relatively high coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). To address the deployed geometry precision problem, rigidized inflatables have been suggested. However, these structures suffer from fiber breakage, a lack of deployment repeatability and final material characteristic consistency.